94 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 



But he that unto others leads the way 



In public prayer, 

 Should do it so 

 As all that hear may know 



They need not fear 



To tune their hearts unto his tongue, and say, 

 Amen ; not doubt they were betrayed 

 To blaspheme, when they meant to have pray'd. 



Devotion will add life unto the letter : 



And why should not 

 That which authority 

 Prescribes, esteemed be 



Advantage got ? 



If the prayer be good, the commoner the better ; 

 Prayer in the Church's words as well 

 As sense, of all prayers bears the bell. CH. HARVIE. 



And now, scholar, I think it will be time to repair to our 

 angle-rods, which we left in the water to fish for themselves : 

 and you shall choose which shall be yours ; and it is an even 

 lay, one of them catches. 



And, let me tell you, this kind of fishing with a dead rod, 

 and laying night-hooks, are like putting money to use ; for 

 they both work for the owners, when they do nothing but 

 sleep, or eat, or rejoice; as you know we have done this 

 last hour, and sat as quietly and as free from cares under this 

 sycamore, as "Virgil's Tityrus and his Melibceus did under 

 \ their broad beech-tree. No life, my honest scholar, no life 

 so happy and so pleasant, as the life of a well-governed 

 angler, for when the lawyer is swallowed up with business, 

 and the statesman is preventing or contriving plots, then we 

 .sit on cowslip-banks, hear the birds sing, and possess our- 

 ! selves in as much quietness as these silent silver streams, 

 which we now see glide so quietly by us. Indeed, my good 

 scholar, we may say of angling, as Dr. Boteler said of straw- 

 berries," Doubtless God could have made a better berry, but 

 doubtless God never did ;" and so, if I might be judge, " God 

 - never did make a more calm, quiet, innocent recreation, than 

 angling." 



I'll tell you, scholar, when I sat last on this primrose bank, 

 and looked down these meadows, I thought of them, as 

 Charles the emperor did of the city of Florence, " That they 

 were too pleasant to be looked on, but only on holidays." As 

 I then sat on this very grass, I turned my present thoughts 

 into verse : 'twas a wish, which I'll repeat to you.* 



r We have here little less than Walton's own word for it, that the following 



